Staff Profile

Career Summary

Biography

I completed my PhD in the lab of A/Prof Phil Hansbro in December 2008 and a played a major role in establishing a research programme that focuses on the link between chlamydial respiratory infection and asthma.

I showed for the first time using mouse models that chlamydial infections in early life, but not adulthood, result in permanent damage to lung tissue and adverse changes in immune responses. These infection-induced alterations result in worsened mucus production and deteriorated lung function during allergic airways disease in adulthood. These findings suggest that early life chlamydial lung infections may predispose individuals to worsened asthma in later life.

I have also shown that an ongoing, but not cleared infection during allergic airways disease in adults, results in the induction of a neutrophilic inflammatory response that resembles neutrophilic asthma in humans. These findings suggest that chlamydial lung infection may induce immune responses in asthmatics that have similarities to responses in neutrophilic asthma. These observations have important implications to clinical disease. Neutrophilic asthmatics have proven difficult to treat as they are relatively resistant to steroid treatment, which is the mainstay of asthma therapy. Elucidation of the mechanisms behind the infection-induced pathophysiological changes that I have observed may inform the development of more effective infection-specific treatments for infection-induced neutrophilic asthma in humans.

In addition to continuing on with my work with chlamydial infection, I am also investigating the association between a number of other common respiratory infections (both bacterial & viral) and the development and exacerbation of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Hansbro PM, Starkey MR, Mattes J, Horvat JC, 'Pulmonary immunity during respiratory infections in early life and the development of severe asthma', Annals of the American Thoracic Society, 11 S297-S302 (2014) [C1]